Clarity
Comes between one heartbeat and the next, when realization dawns with the passing of hope, when you return to the first memory of sharp-edged awareness, knowing the unknowable. Darkness that should have been impenetrable, as clear as the crystal lifelessness of an arctic sea in deepest winter, clutching at its emptiness, draws you, equally hollow, in. Ephemeral sparks of fire, glittering motes of dust drift by, too swiftly to understand, too slowly to not see.
Fighting to draw breath in air suddenly as heavy as water with the smells of life and growth, always mingled with the smells of death and decay, you come to the awareness of what you have always known, that life is death, and death, life. Gentle as the touch of a beloved friend, the breath of the woman who holds your death in her hands brushes your face as you remember other breaths, a choked exhalation of water and death, then of tears and lies, now of sudden understanding and fear as he takes in the scene. Had you been given the choice, you would not have wished him to see this, but life has always stinted you in choices.
In the eternal moment between the scent of hot lead and fresh blood, before the sweet kiss of fire blooms in your chest into the bitter chill of death that comes to all, you wonder if it would have been better for him had it come sooner for you.
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